If you have driven anywhere recently, you have been bombarded by messages on the oh so usefull freeway messageboards telling you to click it. or ticket. My son was the recipient of one of those tickets recently after he un-clicked his belt 1/2 block from our house and was chased to our driveway by a friendly CHP officer. You probably think that this is the result of the nanny state being solicitous about the well-being of its citizens.
Not hardly.
State and local law enforcement agencies have a huge financial incentive to dole out as many tickets as they possibly can -- in order to qualify for the federal grant boodle dangled before their noses like a savory pork chop in front of a hungry blue tick hound.
And what about the serious crimes that aren't persued while our law enforcement officers extort money from law-abiding citizens?
California alone went through $2.6 million this year to fund its May 15-June 4 "Click It or Ticket" dragnet. This in a state with a huge crime problem (real crime; you know, murders, rapes, assaults and that kind of stuff) and a teeter-tottering fiscal situation that, you'd think, would call for austerity and reordering of priorities to the essentials. Do "seat belt checkpoints" qualify? What about it, Ahhnoold?
All we need for complete chaos is for our law enforcement organizations to complete their conversion to cash cows.
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